Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1918 — Russian Peasant's Hard Life. [ARTICLE]

Russian Peasant's Hard Life.

The whole existence of the Russian peasant is out of joint. He is born in a world of earth and wood, where his life is circumscribed oy a log cabin that is thatched in fall, when it assumes an appearance of tidiness, but becomes a huge harp for the March winds to play their woeful dirges on. The thatch is fed to the few starving animals, and the dispensable wooden props and decorations * used to cook dinner with long before the approach of spring. Here between the unplastered, undecorated walls he lives with his horse, his pig, his hens —always provided he has any—under the same roof, glad of their sociability and animal warmth, being much in need of both. His home .is one of the maze of zigzaz, lopsided, weather-beaten, bro-ken-down izbas that stand huddled together, freezing in God’s solemn peacefulness and uncanny dreaminess. Enchantingly idyllic on a canvas, but a dreadful place to live in.